Issue 1 page 13

13 pages in and we meet our villain. Sort of. I imagine Captain Miller is pretty darned straight-laced as villains go, for some reason I decided that I didn't want the antagonist to be much of an actual "bad guy." Maybe because I don't think of Jack as being much of a "good guy."
As an aside I drew this page before becoming familiar with Hugo Pratt, now between the hat and the sideburns Miller sort of reminds me of Corto Maltese. Or maybe just a Good Humor man.

Issue 1 page 12

"Yeah? So What? Exploding Rockets are great!"

Issue 1 page 10 and 11

It's a page of Alder riding her bicycle. Not much else to say. I like the layout of this page but I seriously considered cutting the sequence of Alder going to the scrapyard to be much shorter. After getting some creative advice I elected to keep it as is. This sort of quiet page can actually work well for minicomic or a graphic novel, it's not so good for pacing in a webcomic though. I'm not so sure I can call this a webcomic but I can post two pages at once, so why not?



Jack introduces Alder to his latest find!

Sketchy Lettering

A few of my favorite artists will often upload some great sketchbook drawings on their blogs. So in the interest of trying something new I thought I'd do more inked drawings in my sketchbook and upload them too. What I'd like to do is use a different lettering style for the title in each issue so here I'm trying my hand it various types of lettering.
The big blocky one is my favorite, I sort of want that as a rubber stamp. What do you guys think?

Issue 1 page 9

You know how you have that one friend that's always calling out of the blue and asking you to help out with an idea that you know is going to be dumb but you go along with it anyway? Yeah, me neither.

Issue 1 page 8

I sorta dropped the ball on my promised bonus update, not that it really matters that much it was mostly just going to be me running my mouth about various brands of ink and I can totally do that now anyway.
Anyway, this page we're introduced to Jack's B.F.F., Alder Kinsey. If she seems grumpy she usually is. In case you're wondering what Alder's watching it's this.

After being recently introduced to India ink I've started experimenting with different brands. What I've noticed is that very few people go out of their way to compare different India inks so I've decided to share what my experience has been.
Higgins Black Magic
This is easily the most ubiquitous brand of ink out there and the first brand that most people try. It's a fairly thin ink which comes in a dropper bottle-- to me it seems a little watery and isn't terribly dark. Given about a week with the cap off the bottle to allow some of the water in the ink to evaporate Higgins can be OK, if slightly less than ideal. Higgins is by far the easiest to find-- every shop I've been to that sells art supplies sells Higgins.
Speedball Super Black
I've known a few real cartoonists that love this brand so I gave it a try, from the get go it seemed promising. The first thing I noticed about Speedball is that it didn't come in dropper bottles but small jars, I'd later discover that this is because the ink is too thick to use with a dropper. After some difficulty getting the jar opened I noted that this ink was rather thick, particularly in comparison to Higgins, I hoped that this would mean that it would be darker too. Unfortunately it was about as dark as Higgins, maybe even a little lighter. As near as I can tell Speedball's thickness is because it contains more shellac. Like Higgins allowing water in the ink to evaporate will result in it becoming thicker and darker, nevertheless I was disappointed in this brand. Speedball is fairly easy to find, though there are quite a few art stores that don't carry it.
Windsor and Newton India Ink
What made me want to try this brand was the fact that it came in a glass bottle, (the extra heft of glass makes the bottle harder to knock over.) This turned out to be my favorite brand overall, it's not as thick as Speedball and maybe slightly less watery than Higgins but darker than either. I needed to allow some of the water to evaporate in this brand as well but it worked well after a few hours, (Higgins and Speedball required days to get to the right consistency.) Unfortunately this isn't an easy brand to find. I only know of one art store that carries it and I've never seen it sold by the jug.

Anyway, this is hardly comprehensive but those are the India ink brands that I'm familiar with and hopefully some of that is useful. If anyone would like to share some their favorite ink brands go right ahead!

Issue 1 page 7

You might argue that "awesomest," and similarly "awesomer" aren't really words. Jack would disagree.
By the way, I've finished the penciling for issue two and I have about five pages and the cover left to ink. Speaking of ink, I'm going to have that thing together where I compare the various India inks I've tried and have it up by Friday.

Issue 1 page 6

Jack gets his dream fulfilled and is now a spaceship (spaceplane?) owner!

Issue 1 page 5

Lumpy and Jack head to the pub! I wanted a sort of mid-century deco design sense and as it turns out drawing buildings that way is pretty hard. After looking at window designs on Google image search and a some hours of practice I came up with this. It's an early attempt and I'm still not very good at it.
By the way, two more pages to go and I'll have finally finished penciling issue 2!